Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Stand by your fellow woman

The July 9, 2009 Boston Globe had "The cheat sheet" in the "g" section with a list of the latest men in public positions who had had affairs. Having survived a similar experience led me to a feeling of dismay that women do not have more honor and respect for one another. It seems many even lure men into an affair with no regard for the man's marriage and the harm it will do to his wife or children or his position in life. That is sad. I wish women had more values, and that if they work with or encounter a man they find attractive, they would respect and honor his marriage or commitment even if he doesn't. Do you really want someone who would hurt the very people he has made vows and commitments to? What kind of man is that?

Rather, be the one who says to the man, "You are not free and if you have no morals, I do and will not participate in this." To stand by other women and have honor and decency - is this possible?

(Note:  This was a letter I had written to the Boston Globe and it was published in 2009.)

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Occasionally I will be posting poems I have written on my Facebook page - so thought I would also post them in my blog as well.  Here are two of them so far - both haiku:



     Ice Storm

Winter's work of art,
Glass trees wake in morning sun,

Please handle with care.




   Jelly Bean Trees

Easter candies sprout
shining brightly in the sun
in jelly bean trees.

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

VETERANS' DAY THOUGHTS 

This is a special day set aside to honor and remember Veterans. Sure could have fooled me!  Sales, specials, you name it - all trying to profit from this special day.  Capitalism has found yet another way to make money, allegedly honoring Veterans.  Hopefully some of the events and honors will help out Veterans but so much seems to be hype as a cover for sales.

I'm a Veteran but have a hard time seeing myself as one because I never served during any war. Is a Veteran in peacetime still a Veteran? 

When the Air Force found out I could type, they made me a clerk typist!  Wow - isn't that something! I actually managed to answer the aptitude testing such that it showed I'd have been great for some training or skill - but nope - I could type and they needed typists at the time. The needs of the service come first! When my 3 years was just a couple months shy of the full 36 months, they had an overage of typists so I was released early.  Guess they wanted to save money or something.

So I've never felt like a Veteran - yeah, I wore the uniform and went thru basic training and marched a time or two - marched in D.C. for President Eisenhower's 2nd inauguration - stood at parade rest so long my feet went numb when we were finally ordered to march.

I've had the privilege of meeting and getting to know some Veterans who did serve during various wars and military actions - some are my neighbors where I live now. I also have a very long-term friend on the opposite coast of the US who has gone missing lately so I don't know if he is still living. He served in Vietnam.  Tim and I shared letters during his time in Vietnam and the following poem came from this time:

Christmas in Vietnam

On a hill -
There is a sign saying

"Peace on Earth"

It stands out
In the dark;
While from the chapel
Comes beautiful
Christmas music -

At the same time,
Guns are firing,
Bombs exploding,
And aircraft
Roaring down the runway.



Thursday, August 20, 2015

LONG TIME GONE


Somehow I stopped posting here but I'm back today - August 20, 2015.  For some reason I've been reading books related to desertification and a sixth extinction on planet Earth. The descriptions are dire. The news is filled with Climate Change (is it or isn't it) (man-made or natural). It hurts to see how little heed is given to all this. It hurts to know there are people somewhere going without food while here in the US obesity is a problem.  Water is becoming increasingly critical as drought leads to wildfires through much of California and even in Alaska - who'd a thought Alaska could burn like this!

There is some attention being given to Climate Change - great topic for politics - but will the attention lead to real action and will it be enough or in time?


Saturday, October 27, 2012

Don't Buy the Dark Stuff

I was in my car today stopped at a stop light where my attention was drawn to the closing of a road that crosses the railroad tracks in town, so when the light turned green I didn’t move out instantly. The vehicle behind me gave an annoying beep of its horn a few times, even after I had started going and my delay was not THAT long. Caught up by the annoyance of being beeped at in excess of the situation I felt my own anger rising and was tempted to drive really, really slow or maybe even sort of tap my brakes a few times – you know, the get back thing but it was a passing thought – not an action. I realized that to do anything negative (getting back) was taking on that person’s annoyance or anger and buying into it which was really pretty stupid. If s/he wanted to feel that way, that was his/her problem but I didn’t have to buy into it or accept it. I felt a sort of weight lift, and continued my drive home lighter and free of the dark stuff.

I wonder if this process – of not “buying” into negativity that another was expressing can stay with me and be in effect for all kinds of things that upset me – anger me - scare me – to go through the rest of my life just not buying this dark stuff.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

What is "life"?

I wonder when/if we will figure out what “life” is? I had the thought the other day that everything is trying to be. The thing of it is, it is trying to be what it is. We humans try to figure out what we will be, i.e., “what do you want to be when you grow up?” This “being” is usually referring to an occupation, “I want to be a doctor or a fireman or a mom or a pilot.” The list is endless. The little bunny in my yard doesn’t think that way – it is too busy just being. Sometimes I think my pet birds try to be people, like when they want me to walk with them, deliberately not going under the kitchen table so they can walk around it with me so maybe they can conceive of “being” in a way similar to how we humans see it. But if you take it down to the microscopic level, the bacteria, germs and viruses – they too are trying to just be. It’s too bad their “being” means making us sick but they are not trying to do that – they just are “being”. And even the more inanimate things in the world we can perceive, the trees are just being trees, rocks being rocks. So life is not what we are being. Life is that we be. Can it ever be absent? Gone? If our body dies, there are still all the cells and chemicals it is composed of continuing to be, though they transform. Hmm – come to think of it, when they do transform (decay), they become more an individual being, separate. Together they are part of a body. If one plays with that idea, all the myriad life forms of just planet earth, is this one molecule of something so big we can’t really grasp it? Could the galaxy be one small part of some vast and huge “being”? 

Monday, September 24, 2012

Goodbye Ginger


This is Ginger Bird. Despite the name, Ginger is very much a he. He died on August 23, 2012. Arrived here in June of 2007. Only 5 years for a very big presence. Some things words just don’t quite hold – words could never hold a bird. They can be about a bird. There is something magical about living with birds in a situation where they are free to fly and join you or not. Ginger liked to sit on my head. Especially when I was working – sitting here transcribing medical reports. Don’t know if he did it to be “top bird” or he liked me or it kept his feet warm – whatever, the effect was precious.

When he came I had 3 other birds, all cockatiels, Billy, Jockey and Tori. We lost Billy Bird in August of 2010. Seems August is a tough month for birdies! Turns out it takes 3 birds at least to be a flock – 2 birds are just a pair – so much less than 3.

When Ginger came, Tori had never whistled a note in his life – and he learned from Ginger. Now he jabbers in bird jabber and whistles like a human – memories of Ginger lingering on. Ginger also taught Tori and Jock how to be good birdies and go in their cages each night because he insisted on it and insisted on being covered up too.

One of the cutest things they would do is walk. Here are these creatures who can fly beautifully and instead would choose to walk the length of the house – all 3 of them. Ginger always wanted me to walk with him in the afternoon when I would be sitting and knitting – he’d come stand by my chair, head cocked looking up at me – totally irresistible – so I’d get up and follow behind him, into the kitchen with him making sure he went around the kitchen table because he knew I could not go under. I often wondered if he was being a “person” when he did this. 

We really miss him, Tori, Jockey and me.  But more than missing, we remember Ginger – we remember everything about him, how special he was and always will be in our hearts and memories.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

This 'n That!
























The Women’s Alliance table at the Littleton Holiday Bazaar sold maybe 30 more of the puppets I make, this in addition to around 30 or so from the Country Fair in early September. I love the day when I am making them and glue on the eyes, and then the nose and they come alive – all these little faces looking at me – waiting to go home to live with someone – they make me smile.

Seems like in the fall, things seem to break down – first I had my car for routine service and chose to be proactive and put a new battery in it rather than wait for one of those sort of fatal days when it would be dead just when I most needed the car.

Then the same week, my 3 little birds went to the birdie doctor (Veterinarian) for a well birdie check and nail trims – we did rather well with this – they were somewhat upset by some of the process but something about all being in it together seemed to make it much less frightening. I even did better with it.

Then without warning – my work computer began continuously rebooting – Struggled some with Safe Mode, got it working only to have it fail again – we did this a couple times and now it is at the Computer doctor – I’m expecting at least a new hard drive – hard to know what else.

This morning I woke up from a dream in which I was trying out for some kind of dance thing – and in my dream I did well and when I finished, I told all who were present that I was 75!! This is amazing because it is my birthday and my 75th birthday at that! I was reminded of my favorite poet who is no longer living amongst us, Ric Masten, who wrote a song now in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal, “Let it be a Dance” –

So let it be a dance we do –
May I have this dance with you?
Through the good times and the bad times, too,
Let it be a dance.

Let a dancing song be heard,
Play the music say the words,
Fill the sky with sailing birds,
Let it be a dance.

(the first 2 verses from Ric Masten’s song – “Let It Be a Dance”)





Tuesday, November 1, 2011

October Snow 2011















Here’s my little Japanese maple tree the morning after the storm!

Unlike the storm which brought forth the poem “October Snow” the October snow of 2011 was not so poetic. The weight of the snow was so heavy and with leaves still in the trees, it brought down branches all over the state resulting in power failures, some lasting 4-5 days after the storm. The power crews cleared the major power lines but so many streets and even yards had power lines down making it necessary to go street by street and sometimes house by house to restore the power.

New England has really had a year of record-breaking and unprecedented severe weather – tornado, hurricane, rains, and now this storm.

It is always amazing how so often the day after such a storm, the sky can be blue, the clouds fluffy white – unaware of the damage it caused the day before!

Friday, October 28, 2011

October Snow

White mallow frosting on
speckled colored jimmy trees,
October snow.



First snow of the 2011-2012 season - leaves are still in the trees - the poem is from an October snow of years ago when the snow stuck in the trees and one could see bits of color peaking through - as if the colors had been sprinkled on the snow.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

NEW WASHER LESSON



There’s a lesson in here somewhere – my washer/dryer (stacked unit) is over 17 years old and beginning to leak and the timer doesn’t work right. I’ve known for maybe a year or more I am going to have to do something but I keep managing somehow to keep it functioning enough to keep up with my laundry. Maybe I could just have it repaired for several hundred dollars but how long will it hold up before something else goes and I want it to last at least 10 more years!! I want a new one but the space in my home where this goes is limited – it’s a 24 x 27” unit and the back door through which the old would be removed and the new brought in is only 27” – not much room for maneuvering. Also I am really uncomfortable having to have workpersons in my home (usually male). But I want a new one. So I go to the store I have chosen and they don’t have to sell me – I know what I want. They have it! They can even deliver it in 3 days!! Yikes!! I’ve got to clear the area out and be ready in only 3 days!

Delivery day comes. The 2 person crew shows up bright and early at 8:30 AM – I am ready. I show them the situation. “They” are 2 young men probably my grandsons’ ages. They are polite, quiet and get to work and in 45 minutes the old is out, the new in and fully installed and they leave.

Order is restored, little to show for over a year of worrying it, chewing on it, pondering it, fearing it. It’s all so easy after it’s done.

Wouldn’t you think this could rub off on future situations? That the anguish and uncertainty I put myself through is unnecessary, not needed? Maybe this time it might take? Maybe?

Monday, September 26, 2011

Update to last post on the Japan Earthquake/Tsunami

Somehow I never got to posting how things were for my son and his family once the information was known. All is well, no damage in the Yokohama area or Tokyo where they are, thank goodness.

There has been all kinds of wild and crazy weather in so many places - Hurricane Irene here, a typhoon in Japan - my son had just barely gotten home when it hit and most trains were stopped until it was over and safe to run them again but all is well for him.

Fall was to have officially begun a few days ago - so what was it doing at 84 degrees today, September 26?? As they say in New England, if you don't like the weather, wait a minute - it will change and change is due even by tomorrow with it a bit cooler - and even more by the weekend. And the leaves are beginning to turn - I used to work on the 8th floor of a building overlooking a river and each day as more colors were added in the trees around the river, the scene was changing as if some artist was out there adding the colors - bit by bit. Yeah - beautiful!

Friday, March 18, 2011

JAPAN – Earthquake/tsunami of 3/11/11

It is hard to write something about this disaster because it is still happening. The devastation created by both has not even begun to be cleared or repaired and there is the additional disaster of the nuclear reactors which were damaged by the quake and the threat of their overheating with escaping radiation. I’m not going to try to go into all of that – it’s there on the web – facts and figures – as well as conflicting reports of dangerousness.

My son, his wife and oldest son live in Japan. At the time of the quake and tsunami, my son was in California for work and his wife alone in their apartment on the 25th floor of their building in Yokohama. Their son has an apartment in Tokyo but I don’t know what floor that is on. The quake could be felt even in Yokohama – the building is new and built to deal with the shaking but things flew off shelves and drawers opened:


25 floors up is pretty high – I’ve been told the elevator stops in a quake – that’s a long hike down or back up if it is ever necessary.

My son returned to his family the Monday after the quake and could not go to work until noon on Tuesday because of rolling blackouts and his office would not have power in the morning. He commented how the traffic lights were out and trying to cross the streets without them was very challenging – the drivers are not used to looking out for pedestrians, among some of the effects.

Meanwhile the news from the US made the risks of the reactors overheating and higher radiation getting out much higher than Japan seemed to see it. I watch and read of all this and wish I could just get all 3 of them out of Japan but I have no way to do that and just watching and waiting is so hard. As I write this, the workers are trying to get power to the reactors but it has not been done yet to know if once they have power the pumps for the cooling water will even work. Allegedly there is low level radiation in Tokyo but not deemed harmful or a health threat.

And all I can do right now is just keep hoping that that is true, that they will be okay, and especially hoping and praying the pumps will work, and the reactors can be cooled and all the thousands of people now homeless and who have lost everything, and especially lost loved ones can be helped in some way. And the men working with the reactors, I think something like 180 of them, they are heroes, for they are giving their lives to try and stop the process taking place.

Meanwhile, there is still devastation in so many other places from other disasters, New Zealand, Pakistan, Chile, Haiti, even from hurricane Katrina which has not been not fully rebuilt or recovered from and others I haven't mentioned.

And I wonder – really wonder – how can people go on killing, having wars, hurting each other – what is so damaged and not okay inside of them that in a world with so many hurting and suffering, they can add to the pain?

Monday, February 28, 2011

Divorce: Finding my Worth

There’s a saying that families only get together for weddings and funerals but that’s not true – there are other times and reasons like special birthdays and graduations, especially of grandkids. It can be really hard if there is a divorce in the mix – you want to have it special and wonderful for the happy celebrations but if the wound never fully healed, each event kind of tears it open a bit so you get to dreading something you should be happily looking forward to. As my ex has chosen to share his ongoing life with 3 other women since the initial devastation that was the end of my time with him, our sons have had to accept each new person in their father’s life and learn to move on when each one no longer was what he wanted. They have done so admirably, determined to keep their connection with their dad and with me, putting up with all the difficulties that go with all this. While I can look at each change as further proof it is my ex with the problem of not being able to sustain a relationship, it has been hard to override my own throw-away status and replacement. The following poem summed it up at one time:

Trade In

He won't lift a finger
To mend a relationship,
Although he'll patch,
nurture and repair
His "$200 special" cars -
While the wrecker
Hauls his wife away,
Replaced by a newer model.

(He used to find cars with 90,000 miles on them which the former owner would part with for only $200. Being skilled and handy, he could usually repair them and thus we had several of these $200 specials at different times but when it came to our marriage, he refused to do any counseling or therapy - no repairs and definitely no nurture.)

So my own struggle has been to find my worth for I felt like a throw-away which, despite much therapy and work and courses and interests, has been a hard feeling to counter.

I finally realized that there is one way in which I matter through it all that no other woman can and that is I am the mother of two wonderful sons and while the other women could bear him additional sons or daughters; our two exist only because of me. All these other women could not be the mother of these two fine men and now the grandmother of 2 fine young grandsons. In terms of worth – this is priceless!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Attitude of Gratitude

Go forth and try to start and/or end each day finding something to be grateful for. There are so many – there’s the moment when I uncover my 3 birds and they greet me with birdie chatter – they start each day happy and singing.

Then the fun time of checking e-mails and sites on the computer – finding family and friends there because they are too far away to be here.

Finishing the work I do on time, knowing maybe 20-30 people with health problems now have timely and accurate records in the (ready for this – drum roll please) Electronic Medical Record system, henceforth to be called the EMR.

Delivering the work and picking up more, with brief encounters with other employees of each practice and occasionally a chance to say “hi” to the doctor.

Passing through the medical office building careful to not have doors close on someone coming up or down the stairs behind me or the occasional small child dancing down the hall freely and delightfully – alive – happily alive. And crossing the highway to one more office where there are several crows standing on a snow bank – letting me approach fairly close without fear – how I wished I had some bread with me – maybe next time I’ll think of it – but then maybe it’s not good for them to learn to not fear me.

The drive home – yes – not having to park my butt in someone else’s office for an 8 hour day or whatever the shift – and working at home with my 3 little tiels hanging out in my home office with me. Love it when Ginger chooses to sit on my head and Tori gets on my shoulder singing in my ear – Tori – I can’t hear the dictation when you are loud!!

Meeting a neighbor in the park I live in – a smile, short chit chat – knowing we are all there and all care. And the neighbors – what special people – one across the street using his mighty snow blower to help many of us clear our drives – another who helps pull the snow off her neighbors’ roofs – next door who helps me clear some snow from my roof on his side of my house – it’s a real neighborhood.

And gratitude for the amazing and phenomenal luck that brought 2 young men down my street just when I was out in the yard and they were looking for roofs to shovel before we had damage – at a price I could say yes to – and they did an amazing job – shoveling the roof, the porch roof and then cutting about in half the huge piles of snow previously raked off the roof by me – that stuff was heavy and they finished in an hour.

Actually the list is endless – I suppose in some way even this snow, as endless as it all was and threatening as it was has a gift within it in some way – replenishing aquifers – work for all the plowers and sanders – work for roof shovelers – and even the chance to play for the skiers, snowboarders, tubers, and snowshoers.

And then – tomorrow is another day – and there is sure to be more. But I also know one can get into a dark hole where gratitude is hard to find or see – a friend who is very ill and may not make it – if only we truly believed that there was life in some way after our body dies – and death was not an ending but a beginning – like a graduation into another level of being – then such illness and sadness would be about the loss and the missing of these wonderful special people in our lives but also gratitude that they had moved on to whatever comes next. Some believe there is something, some do not – and mostly we don’t know until it is our turn. Can’t help but think that being born must not feel very good to the baby being born – to go from the lovely comforting womb filled with fluid to being pushed out and then into a world where that fluid is gone, wrapped into a receiving blanket – and all that takes place with a birth – no wonder crying is one of the first utterances we can make. Thus we enter this life. Maybe dying is another kind of birth.

Maybe.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Winter Wonderland




The nor’easter of January 12, 2011! This was how it looked by noon after the first shoveling. I think we got close to another foot of snow before it ended with a lot of drifting from the wind. It brings to my mind the many snow thoughts and images from other storms –

There’s that beginning of the snow – the Taste of Winter –


The sky goddess
Sifts frozen crystals
Frosting the world beneath;

I dance with delight
In this confection,
Catching some on my tongue
Now and then.


Driving in the storm we have a different view:


Flakes of snow
Run before the wind
Changing my view
To cartoon dots of winter white
In my head lights.


On ponds we see:


Swirling flakes of snow
Spun by a winter wind
Into holographic sculptures
On a frozen pond,
Like some Star Trek person
Transporting into being.


And the newly created wonderland when it ends:


Soft new snow resting on branches
Collected in nooks and crannies
Like cotton puffs,
With breaks in continuity
Where little birds had landed
Coming and going to the feeders -
And then
The brilliant red of a cardinal
Perched in the bush next to the feeders -
Making this a living Christmas card
In my back yard.


Along with newly designed trees and bushes:


Pussywillow world,
branches tipped with cotton snow,
puffs of winter breath.


And soon the birds of winter with a new dance:


The snow storm shuffle,
With a kind of hop-shuffle step
Created by a sparrow in a snowstorm
Trying to uncover sunflower seed hearts
Hidden by the snow -


And kids come out to play:


Rosy-cheeked muffins
Toddling about,
Roly,
Poly,
Red, orange, yellow,
Purple, blue, green
Winter sprouts.

While new flowers grow:

Gloves and mittens sprout
From stairs, in halls, on sidewalks,
Winter hand flowers.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Let It Snow!!!

It's snowing outside - been doing it since late afternoon on Sunday (today is Monday, 12/27/10) - and it's supposed to keep on keeping on most of this day so who knows how much it will be when it ends. The title for this post is "Let It Snow" but we really don't have a choice about that. Can you imagine what it would be like if we could choose? Anyway - I wrote the following poem after another serious snow storm back in 2006. I think they had called it a blizzard at the time.

Blizzard of 2006

At 6 AM - it is already snowing,
Don't know when it started -
The temperature of 20 degrees
Will keep it light and fluffy.

On TV last night they were running
"no church" listings for today
Like school closing lists.

If you have to have a blizzard
It is better on a Sunday -
People can stay home
And the plows and sanders
Can do their work a little easier
Though I doubt driving the plow
Through near whiteout conditions
Is easy.

At noon I shoveled 8 inches -
Light fluffy snow -
But it kept coming -
Collecting and covering
That which I had cleared.

I watched out my window
Sideways snow -
Driven by the wind -
Sculpting shapes as it drifted
And built up to overhang
A roof edge - ready to fall
On any below -

In the evening,
I shoveled again -
Another 8 inches -
And still it snowed

Come to think of it -
Maybe God was using His
Snowblower in heaven -
Blowing the snow to earth;
For the next morning -
The sky was blue and the sun was shining.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Dark Cloud

It is Holiday time – time for traveling, sometimes long distances to be with loved ones, family and friends. Too many are serving in the Military with the mission said to be preserving peace and going after al Qaeda and the Taliban far from home – threats from other countries – whew! I know I’m short on details but my point isn’t to tell the news – that’s in all the media – with the fear factor fanned constantly. News of bombs going off at embassies, and the process of either electronic (i.e., x-ray like) searches in airports or for those not sure of the TSA equipment safety you can let one of the agents feel you up (scuse me – do a detailed pat down) – all this to go through to get where you are going.

About 7 years ago or 3 years after 9/11, I wrote the following-

Dark Cloud

Fear has crept into our lives
Here in these United States -
For so long we lived in freedom,
Which included freedom from fear,
Until 9/11.

Now the fear is here -
Almost like a fog which can move
Through openings
We didn’t know were there -
Filling the spaces
We used to have when free from fear.

It is hard to see
In this dark cloud,
Hard to believe
The sun still shines,
Hard to trust
There will be a tomorrow.

We turn to each other now,
Connect more,
Talk of love more,
For love is the one surety
In this time of fear.

So much that used to
Separate us,
Divide us,
Isolate us -
Seems so unimportant
In these fearful times -

Perhaps our growing love
For each other,
Can dissipate the fear cloud,
Just as the sun burns the mist away
Of a foggy day –

As we sing
To the children in my church:

“Go now in peace, go now in peace,
May the light of love surround you,
Everywhere, everywhere,
You may go.”

As we end 2010, may it be so.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Ginger has become a breakdancer - we were watching a breakdance video and he just started keeping the beat perfectly. However, once I got my camera he kind of backed off a little and then Tori flew in and distracted him.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Christmas

Christmas in the 90s

Maybe there's snow - maybe not,
The magical presence of Santa Claus -
Modern derivative of Old Saint Nick,
With bag of toys - never tricks,
Travels by sleigh and flying reindeer -
Over our housetops,
Magical flight.
Down the chimney he comes
In the midst of the night -
So they say.

His presence brings presents
Once in the year,
And what had begun
As a spirit of giving,
Has morphed to a season
In which Christmas sales
May be the reason
We still earn a living!

I wrote this poem in the 90s and each year we see the stores and malls start earlier and earlier to put Christmas things out (even before Halloween now), trying to get a running start on sales. I don’t know if it helps – but it does also show up the web that ties so much together – good sales = jobs, manufacturing of goods. And poor sales mean layoffs and fewer jobs. We are so very interconnected in this!

Another part of all this are the endless Santa’s and lines for kids to tell Santa what they want him to bring them –


What You See Is Not What Is

In the card, a wonderful picture
Santa with a small child on his lap -
An image of the magic of Santa
And Christmas and children -

In reality -
The child screams and cries,
Stranger danger -
And this one the strangest of all -
Or perhaps - the coming to life
Of this white-haired, red-suited figure
Seen in stories and film
Is what frightens -

Mothers plead, cajole
To get the kid in the lap and picture -
Some even threaten
Muttering dire consequences
Under their breath,
While the photographer
Tries various toys and antics
To bring a momentary smile of glee
To that captive face caught on film.

This ritual of the season
Plays out every year -
There is always that first time though
That first encounter with Santa,
The fear and tears and struggles -
Is it any wonder -
That children having survived it,
Think Santa owes them big time?


Lastly comes after Christmas when while shopping for an after-Christmas birthday, one encounters:


Christmas Rubble

The holiday storm is over –
Store racks and displays picked clean
With remnants of fine gifts
Offered now at bargain prices –
Last step before junk;
Impossible to find
A choice birthday gift
In such rubble.